


This Is a Rescue

by thelittlestdoc



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Magic, Double Agents, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Imperius, Legilimency, M/M, Memory Charms, Occlumency, Polyjuice Potion, Sharing Clothes, Veritaserum, safe houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-09 23:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5560258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlestdoc/pseuds/thelittlestdoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Poe Dameron first saw Finn frowning at the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 at King’s Cross Station.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>In which Leia’s not just the Headmistress, the British and Irish Quidditch League’s best players are AWOL, Rey is the Chosen One, Finn’s got a bad feeling about this, and Poe’s the best damn flyer in the Resistance. Oh, and someone needs to drag <strike>Luke</strike> Professor Skywalker back from his <strike>camping trip of sadness</strike> sabbatical on that ridiculous, Unplottable rock off the coast of County Kerry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2187

“Turn here,” Finn says, wand at the small of the prisoner’s back. The man twists his head, jaw clenched down and dark eyes narrowed, but goes where he’s told when Finn jerks his head to the right.

“What are you--”

Finn raises his free hand to his mask, one finger hovering over where his mouth would be if the man could see his face. He flicks his wand to close and lock the door behind them and casts the strongest nonverbal  _Silencio_  he can manage. The prisoner stands stock-still as Finn releases his bonds. Finn pulls off his First Order mask, hands clumsy and slick with fear sweat.

“Hey, I know you. Finn, right? Merlin, you're all grown up, then. It’s been--what? Five years? Are you one of our double agents?”

“I'm not with the Resistance."

"You're...then what is this?"

"This is a rescue,” Finn says, wiping at his brow with his robe-clad forearm. “I’m rescuing you.”

“If you’re not with the Resistance, then why are you helping me?”

Finn draws a wand from his sleeve, placing it in the other man’s hand. “Because...it’s the right thing to do.”

The prisoner stares at Finn for a long moment. Maybe Finn’s made a mistake, chosen the wrong prisoner from the depths of his still-muddled memories. Maybe he’s going to get caught. Getting caught means being handed over to Phasma, or, if she’s in a particularly vengeful mood, Kylo Ren. Getting caught means returning to the bowels of the mansion. They’ll torture him until they get bored -- days, weeks, it’s impossible to tell in the Hux estate’s vast, warren-like dungeons, with the lack of light and unevenly spaced meals -- and then his mind will be dulled by potions and Imperius curses. Just when Finn’s about to give the dream of freedom up as a lost cause, the prisoner’s face breaks into a wide grin. It’s warm and familiar and something that feels almost like hope starts to grow in Finn’s chest.

Poe’s expert eyes scan the meticulously maintained brooms lining the walls. “You need somebody who can get you through the wards.”

“I need somebody who can get me through the wards,” Finn agrees.

“Alright.” Poe picks two Firebolts from opposite sides of the supply closet, though Finn is unable to discern how they’re different from any of the others. “We’re doing this,” Poe says, grin all teeth when he presses one of the brooms into Finn’s trembling hands.

 

\--

 

Poe Dameron first saw Finn frowning at the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 at King’s Cross Station. It was the start of Poe’s fifth year, the first year he’d convinced his dad not to take the day off from work, that Poe could be trusted to portkey into London and board the train on his own. They've never been flush, his family, but ever since his mum died, money's been especially tight. Dad shouldn't be losing out on pay just because Poe wants to see him waving from the platform like his friends' parents.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe said, wheeling the cart carrying his trunk and BB-8’s cloth-covered carrier towards the boy. “You need help finding something?”

“I’m...I think maybe somebody’s playing a trick on me,” the boy said, voice sounding small. One of his hands gripped the handle of his cart, the other clutched tightly to a familiar-looking scrap of parchment.

“Mind if I take a look?” Poe asked, pointing at the boy’s ticket.

The boy’s full lips pressed tightly together as he tilted his head back to study Poe. Something in his gaze made Poe want to squirm, something serious and too old behind those brown eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He passed Poe the ticket.

“Nah, it’s not a trick. You’re in the right place.” Poe returned the ticket. “Just watch me and follow after. If I don’t see you in a minute I’ll come back to make sure you’re alright.” Poe couldn’t help his quick glance around the platform, even though he'd known the entire area’s laden with repelling charms to keep the Muggles oblivious to Platform 9¾. He'd taken the approach at a jog, cart rolling smoothly ahead of him, and felt the familiar, heavy sensation of passing through the barrier and onto the platform. Thirty seconds later, the boy came barreling through, only just managing to stop his cart from ramming into Poe’s legs. “You made it!”

“I made it!” the boy agreed, laughing. “Thanks a lot, Mister--”

“Mr. Nothing. Name’s Poe.” Poe had offered his right hand. “Poe Dameron.”

“Finn,” the boy replied, enthusiastically shaking Poe’s hand.

“Just Finn?” Poe had smiled down at the first year, feeling pleased that he'd already distracted himself from his dad's absence.

“Yeah. Just Finn.” Finn’s bright smile drooped, shoulders hunching defensively. “Case number 2187.”

“Well, I’m sure as hel--sure as heck not calling you that,” Poe said, heart sinking at Finn’s distress. His eyes lit on one of the signs edging the platform. “How about Cross? Finn Cross. That sounds like a good name, don’t you think?”

“Cross.” Finn’s smile returned twofold, his white teeth a dazzling flash against his dark skin. “Yeah, Cross. I like it!”

“Alright. Come on, Finn Cross, let’s find you some first years to sit with. My buddy Jess’s cousins Slip and Pamich are your age, I think.”

 

\--

 

“Stay calm, stay calm,” Finn mutters, voice muffled by his mask.

“I _am_ calm,” Poe hisses, eye darting back and forth as Finn pretends to escort him through one of the mansion’s less used wings. The walls are lined with creepy portraits of Hux’s ancestors, their watery blue eyes and angular, too-pale faces following Poe and Finn’s progress down the hall.

“I was talking to myself,” Finn sighs, adjusting his grip on their brooms. Shrinking charms were out of the question, but both of them layered enough disillusionment charms and bedazzling hexes that passing Stormtroopers shouldn’t notice anything amiss. “I’d feel a lot better about this if you could have your wand out.”

“Me, too, buddy,” Poe whispers as they finally reach an exterior door.

Finn casts a tidy _Alohomora_ with a neat flick of his wand and moments later they’re breathing the cool air of a breezy Wiltshire night. “The next patrol shouldn’t come by here for at least five minutes,” he says, pulling back the hood of his robes and tossing his mask to the ground. He’ll be happy if he never sees the damn thing, again. “They get kind of lax when Ren and Hux aren’t here. Phasma’s scary, but she’s not, you know, mass murdering crazy. Yet.”

“Well, sure. She’s just garden variety evil.” Poe nods, shrugging out of his restraints. He takes his wand and one of the Firebolts from Finn. “Any wards that a strong _Partis Temporus_ won’t take care of?”

“I mean, with _you_ casting, no,” Finn says, feeling his face flush when Poe flashes him the lopsided grin that graced a thousand Puddlemere United posters -- and the covers of Witch Weekly’s last three Most Charming Smile issues. “The anti-disapparation wards extend to the property line. You can see, it’s marked off with that fence,” Finn points towards a towering stone wall encircling the property, “over there, which is why we needed the brooms. Got your standard anti-intruder jinxes and Muggle repelling charms to keep anyone climbing in or out. They’re not as worried about anyone escaping and Kylo Ren usually flies in and out, so." He shrugs, because you don't really need to explain 'don't anger the crazy dark wizard' to a member of the Resistance. "Crossing the property line either way is going to set off a caterwauling charm, so they’re going to know something’s up even if we don’t have trouble flying out.”

“I’ve got a safe place where we can go if we can apparate,” Poe says, mounting his broom with the kind of lithe grace that Muggle-born Finn’s never been able to manage. His wand remains tightly clasped in his left hand. “As long as we can fly out and find someplace to land for, say, thirty seconds, I can get us out of here.”

“Okay.” Finn takes a shuddering breath and mounts his broom.

“Hey.” Poe catches Finn’s eye. “We’ve got this, Finn. We're both getting out of here.”

“Right.” Finn nods. “Of course. This isn’t a terrible plan, at all.”

Poe bites down on his lip, stifling a laugh, and nods back at Finn. “Let’s fly.”

They kick off, Finn with considerably less finesse, and make for the property line so fast that Finn’s eyes immediately start to water. Poe’s a dark-clad streak in Finn’s vision, his body a sleek curve over the broom as they rise just high enough to skim the tops of the garden hedges. He’s breath-takingly beautiful even with blood matting the curls on the right side of his head. Finn had been too worried about running into anyone to risk cleaning off the blood, though he did cast a thorough _Episkey_ that healed the scalp wound beneath Poe’s hair. There wasn't time to do much for the after-effects of Ren's hackneyed Legilimency or the accompanying Cruciatus curse. Finn didn't have the proper supplies if there had been time.

“Brace yourself!” Poe calls over his shoulder, raising his wand.

Finn squares his shoulders, casting one final glance back at Hux Manor, windows glowing with lamp and wandlight in the growing darkness. He turns forward just as Poe casts the barrier parting curse.

“ _Partis Temporus_!” Poe shouts, brilliant blue light curling from his wand to part the wards with a blast of wind that almost sends Finn hurtling off the back of his broom. In a moment they’re both through the gap and the caterwauling charm goes off with a scream like a thousand banshees.

“Merlin’s beard, that’s loud!” Poe shouts, slowing enough for Finn to pull up alongside.

Finn thinks ‘loud’ is an understatement. The charm’s screaming is tearing at every last one of his already fragile nerves. If his hands weren’t already unsteady from recently-shaken Imperius and potion withdrawal they definitely would be, now. “We’ve got to land fast if we’re going to apparate before--”

The caterwauling charm cuts off, the eerie silence swiftly replaced by the unmistakable sound of the Stormtroopers' call to arms. A glance back at the manor grounds shows Stormtrooper after Stormtrooper spilling out of the doors, hurriedly falling into formation, brooms at the ready.

“Dive, now!” Poe instructs, pointing towards a small stand of trees. Finn follows as quickly as he can, landing beside Poe in a sprawl of limbs. Poe threads his arm firmly through Finn’s and says, “Hold on tight.”

Finn feels the familiar, nauseating pull of apparition, and then nothing.


	2. I Know How to Run Without You Holding My Hand

Every last inch of Rey’s body is sore, including several muscles she hadn’t previously known she possessed, which makes for a rather unpleasant emergency side-along apparition. She bangs on the inner door of the safe house’s front room without rising from the ground.

“Injured!” she calls when her knocking isn’t immediately answered.

The door swings noiselessly open, but the shielding spell remains firmly in place over the threshold. “You were to come alone.”

“I know,” Rey sighs. She brushes aside Karé Kun’s shiny black bob to check her pulse -- slow, but steady; still steadfastly, stubbornly beating -- and nods. “I know I can’t bring her in without prior approval. I have somewhere I can take her, but I won’t be able to keep her stabilized for a real Healer without supplies.”

Kaydel Ko looks down at them through the slight shimmer of the door, biting her bottom lip. Rey’s worked with Ko a handful of times -- hell, they were at Hogwarts together, though Ko was a Ravenclaw and three years Rey’s senior -- and though the witch is a stickler for rules she’s not...not _actively_ cruel. Perhaps a bit bitter, though Rey can’t really blame her for that. Ko’s been kept from the front lines for the better part of a year. Ko's still recovering from a shoulder injury incurred when an _Expulso_  sent her flying broomless through the front window of Fortescue’s. Rey wishes Ko realized how bloody brilliant she is at maintaining a safe house, how unbelievably vital this work is to the continued existence of the Resistance, wishes there was ever time to do more than just _thank_ her.

“I still need it,” Ko says, voice and wand hand steady, “even if she’s not coming in.”

“Of course.” Rey hates their unending system of codes and ciphers and passwords, though the double-sided safe house system gives the witch or wizard on each side a shot at getting away if something seems off. The mismatching Shakespeare will always makes her cringe, but there are too many ways to pose as someone else. Their minds are too vulnerable and magic can be too changeable, too unruly. Sometimes all they have are words. “Since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain.”

“O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.” Ko’s wand emits a shimmering trail of golden sparks and the barrier turns a pale, almost sickly, violet. “You can come through to get the supplies, but she’ll have to stay in the front room.” She steps aside, free hand rising to fiddle with a strand of hair that’s escaped her ubiquitous blonde buns. “I am sorry, Rey.”

“I know, Ko.” Rey steps through the barrier, shuddering at the sparking feeling coursing through her aching bones, her tender muscles, her weary soul. “Anyone staying here at the moment?”

“Had to expand the second bedroom into a dorm for a full squadron a few days back, but it's down to just me, again.” Ko leads the way from the front room, down a narrow, darkly-papered hall to the kitchen. She waves a hand towards a door Rey vaguely remembers opening onto a supply cupboard. “The General made sure I had a full restock from Headquarters before the squad shipped out, so help yourself to anything you need out of the healing supplies. I was just making sandwiches for lunch. Want me wrap up some food for you or will you have something where you’re headed?”

“Food would be brilliant,” Rey says, opening the cupboard door. She can’t suppress a smile at its contents. Everything an injured witch could ever want, from finished potions and prepared ingredients to bandages and hand-labeled packets of Muggle pills, creams, and sprays. They cast as few spells as possible to avoid detection, so potions and Muggle medical supplies are safest.

Rey loads her satchel, putting its undetectable expansion charm to the test, hoping it’ll be enough to keep Karé stable until she can get Kalonia or one of the Resistance’s other Healers to see to her. Rey’s a dab hand at battlefield medicine, but Potions was never her strongest subject. At Hogwarts, she always had help from -- but that was a lifetime ago. Well. She'll be careful of the potions. The Ballycastle Bats' faithful will never forgive her if she inadvertently offs the best Chaser they’ve had in three decades.

“Alright, so I made sure there were a few without mustard,” Ko says when Rey emerges from the cupboard. “I remembered how much you hated that, last time. And Karé was a year behind me at school, but we were both in Dueling Club. She always brought orange slices to snack on, so I threw a couple of those in here, too. I figure the vitamins can’t hurt, anyway. And they’re a good source of fiber, so--”

Rey puts a gentle hand on Ko’s shoulder and watches, disheartened but not surprised, as the witch’s face crumples. “You’re doing everything you can, Kaydel.” She tightens her grip on Ko’s shoulder before dropping the hand back to her side. “And you’re doing it brilliantly.”

Ko sniffles, forcing her mouth back into a neutral position as she swipes the tears from her cheeks. “Of course. Thank you, Rey.” She shrinks the picnic basket she’s packed down to the size of Rey’s palm with a wordless wave of her wand. Ko nods, satisfied and already looking remarkably put together, and passes Rey the basket.

Rey gives Ko her very best encouraging smile -- she’s been told it’s not great, but the world of ‘you’re allowed to show your emotions to other people without it being a dangerous sign of weakness’ is still relatively new and very strange -- and tucks the basket inside her satchel. She secures the clasp and, after a moment's consideration, casts a sticking charm. Can't be too careful.

“I’ve got to move her while she’s still stable, but thank you. I hope the rest of your week is tremendously uneventful.”

Ko laughs at that, the sound bright and startled, but her mood seems much improved as she follows Rey to the front room. Rey passes through the shielding spell and Ko reinstates the full barrier before waving goodbye.

 

\--

 

Rey and Finn -- despite their mutual lonely, surnameless orphans status -- were not fast friends upon their arrival at Hogwarts. No, it took two months, a detention in the Forbidden Forest, and an entire Acromantula colony for that.

“Stop taking my hand!” Rey said, pulling free from Finn’s grip as they tripped over tree roots and fallen branches and the sludge-slick surface of rotting leaves. She’d been doing a fine job of ignoring the oncoming sound of the giant spiders up until this point, and a good dose of shouting at the most annoying first year in Slytherin should've been just the thing to keep drowning out the nightmarish noises. “I know how to run without you holding my hand!”

“Maybe you do,” Finn had snapped, taking a wide-eyed glance over his shoulder before putting on an extra burst of speed, “but I’m scared enough that I might forget!”

If she’d had the extra breath, Rey definitely would’ve sighed in frustration. As it was, they were running for their lives and Finn had already managed to drop his wand, so they only had the light from Rey’s to see by. She had linked their fingers together, squeezed his sweaty hand in her firm grip, and led the way through a narrow gap in the trees, praying all the while to anything or anyone that might be listening that the spiders wouldn’t be able to follow.

Perhaps someone or something ‘up there’ was listening, because the gap was, indeed, too narrow. As Rey and Finn ran, the sound of the Acromantulas had grown fainter and fainter. They’d eventually reached Groundskeeper Chewbacca’s cabin at the edge of the forest. It was lit from within by the warm, cheery glow of firelight filtering through the filmy window curtains.

They weren’t quite inseparable, after, inter-house relations being what they were, back then. There are some experiences you can’t go through without feeling a strange sort of kinship, though, and running for your life from a dozen carthorse-sized spiders is one of them.

 

\--

 

When Rey apparates to the unmanned safe house, she senses an intrusion. Closing her eyes, she can tell that the wards have recently been reset, more recently than anyone should’ve been here, and shudders. She casts a disillusionment charm over Karé’s unconscious form, wishing once again that she’d stolen Professor Skywalker’s invisibility cloak before he skived off to Merlin knows where.

There’s a peculiar sort of ripping sound from the direction of the kitchen, and then BB-8 gives off a loud, perturbed trill. Rey goes running for the kitchen, wand out, and sees--

“Finn?”

“Rey?” Finn’s face is scratched and sweaty, a streak of dirt covering half of his forehead. His boots are caked in a thick layer of mud and his black trousers are ragged to the point of trailing hems and a missing back pocket. Said pocket looks to be in BB-8's sharp-toothed mouth. “What are you doing here with a demon cat?”

“What are you doing in my safe house?” Rey asks, wand still at the ready.

“This is your safe house?” Finn looks around, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Well, not just mine, but that’s not the point. How’d you get in and put the wards back up?”

“I...didn't?”

“Well, they were up when I left and they’re back up, now.” Rey takes a careful step into the kitchen, eyes scanning the room for signs of any other intruders. She hadn't sensed any other, unfamiliar magic, but there are ways of masking that sort of thing. “And you’re in here. You, who, last I checked, was nothing more than a traitorous piece of First Order scum.”

Finn stares at her, face blank in a way that sends a cold rush of fear down her spine. In all the years she's known him, Finn's face has broadcast his thoughts and feelings as obviously as if he'd shouted them. He'd been banned from her weekly Exploding Snap game because he was too easy to read.

“Tell me how you really feel," Finn says, after the silence has stretched long enough for BB-8 to get bored with Finn's pocket, spitting it out in a wet, mangled heap on the floor. "I’m here, in a Resistance safe house, and I’m not tied up or dead.” Finn motions to himself, bedraggled but clearly unrestrained. “I guess your sources aren’t as good as you thought they were.”

“I--what?” Rey scowls.

“Rey?” Karé’s weak voice calls from the front room.

“You,” Rey points at Finn with her wand, sinking feeling in her stomach telling her she's being weak, that she can't trust him, “you don’t move or I’ll put you in a full body bind, see if I don’t.”

Rey dashes back to Karé’s side. “Gave me a bit of a scare, there, Kun,” she says, dropping to her knees.

“I’m fine. Just, ya know, a little horizontal right now.” Karé smiles, face still sallow. “It’s -- where the hell did you get that jacket?”

Rey turns to see that Finn, BB-8 trailing with its claws now sunk into Finn’s trouser leg, has followed her.

“This?” Finn grabs the worn lapel of his tan leather jacket.

“Yes, that jacket,” Karé snarls, struggling against Rey’s restraining hands to rise onto her elbows. “That’s my squadron leader’s, he’d never -- ”

“You’re talking about Poe?” Finn interrupts. Karé and Rey both stare at him. The sinking feeling in Rey's stomach twists into a knot of fear. “Poe Dameron’s your squad leader, right?" Karé nods and Finn bites his lip before sighing, his mouth forming an unfamiliar grimace. "I’m sorry. I helped him escape from the dungeons at Hux Manor, but -- I’m sorry. I'm so sorry. He didn’t make it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey’s password is from Richard III, Act I, Scene i. Ko’s is from Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene ii. 
> 
> There’s a line in the second scene derived from a line in Philosopher’s Stone. “There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.”


	3. I Have a Bad Feeling About This

“Where are you taking me?” Finn asks.

Rey wishes he was more...antagonistic. Angrier. Mostly he sounds resigned, maybe a little curious.

“There’s a _Fidelius_ on Resistance Headquarters,” Rey says, keeping her voice low. Karé’s sleeping in the back bedroom after grudgingly downing a half dose of sleeping draught. Rey’s whole body is on edge, fight or flight responses going haywire, hands itching to be doing something, anything useful. For now, there’s nothing for it. Karé needs more rest before Rey feels comfortable moving her. Rey takes a steadying breath and double-checks the strength of the _Incarcerus_ she’s using to bind Finn’s arms behind his back. “I’m not leaving you here unattended, but Karé needs seeing to by a real Healer. Count yourself lucky you’re of possible intelligence value. You’re tagging along until you prove yourself too much trouble.”

“Yeah, I get that bit.” Finn stretches his shoulders as best he can within the confines of his bonds. Rey determinedly does not feel bad for him. Finn’’s with the First Order. It doesn’t matter that they used to be friends. It doesn’t matter that Finn looks filthy and tired, like he’s running on too little sleep after being beaten about the head with the business end of a broom. “But why can’t you have a Healer come here? You said it was a safe house.”

“It’s an unmanned safe house.” Rey nods towards one of the rickety, backless stools arrayed around the kitchen table and Finn sits with a relieved hum. “That’s convenient for certain things, but it also lacks necessary protections and protocols.” Finn opens his mouth, but she cuts him off with a shake of her head. “Don’t ask. I’m not telling you any specifics. It’s unlikely you’ll manage to escape, but I’m not giving you any information the First doesn’t already have. Anyway, Healers are too valuable to risk sending someplace like this. My current mission didn’t leave me with clearance to go to any of our manned safe houses with anyone else. Retrieving Karé was fortunate, but unplanned. Which is...unfortunate.”

“Okay.” Finn frowns, shoulders twisting like he was trying to gesture with his hands. He makes a frustrated face, muscle jumping in his jaw. Rey always used to say if someone took away Finn’s hands he’d be mute. It’s...not so funny, now. “Okay,” Finn starts, again, after unclenching his jaw, “but if you can’t go to Headquarters with me, you can’t leave me here, you can’t go to a manned safe house, and you can’t get a Healer to come to an unmanned safe house, what exactly are you going to do?”

“Portkey roulette,” Rey replies. She puts the kettle on the hob, careful to keep Finn in her line of sight as she rifles through the cabinets. Shoved behind a pile of flower-patterned plates, she finds a half full box of PG Tips and a chipped china mug from the National Gallery gift shop. As the water starts to boil she studies the mug, something naggingly familiar about the picture printed on its sides.

“It’s _The Thames Below Westminster_ ,” Finn says.

Rey blinks and turns to look at him. “What?”

“The painting.” Finn nods at the mug cradled in Rey’s hands. “Monet. We saw it when we met up that time. You know, for your birthday, the summer between fourth and fifth year.”

“Right.” Rey sets the mug down, ignoring her shaking hands as the kettle begins to shriek. She snatches it up before it can get too loud, hurriedly dropping a tea bag into the mug and pouring the water. Moving on autopilot, Rey replaces the kettle and turns off the gas. She rummages in the drawers and cupboards until she comes up with a bent spoon and an oversized saucer. She uses a levitation charm to carry the lot to the kitchen table.

“Right,” Finn says once Rey sits on the stool directly opposite. “So. Portkey roulette?”

Rey can’t suppress a smirk and Finn’s face twists into an achingly familiar expression of resignation.

“I hate it when you make that face.” Finn slumps as far forward as his bonds will allow. “That face always leads to something terrible. Like a trip to see the giant squid in the middle of a snowstorm. Or breaking into the kitchens for biscuits after hours when there are prefects right on our tale.” Rey raises an unimpressed eyebrow and Finn sighs. “Not like I have any say in the matter. Like I ever had any say in the matter. I’d just like to state for the record, for the millionth time: I have a bad feeling about this.”

“So noted.” Rey takes a dainty sip of tea to hide her smile.

 

\--

 

After the Acromantula incident, Rey and Finn served the remainder of their detentions by cleaning the Trophy Room.

“Why can’t anything stay in one place?” Finn demanded. It had taken them half an hour to locate the room, previously on the third floor, which was now on the sixth floor beside an unused classroom and around the corner from unisex lavatory neither of them had seen before. “If there was one thing I liked growing up as a Muggle, it’s that rooms stayed exactly where they’re supposed to be. None of this moving about when you’ve got your back turned nonsense.”

Rey snorted and used her shoulder to push open the heavy doors. Professor Statura, the Hufflepuff Head of House and their Transfiguration instructor, had left an array of buckets, brushes, and rags in the same corner of the room he’d placed them the day before. She grabbed a rag, brush, and already-full bucket, and made for the Quidditch trophy case. If Rey was stuck cleaning for two hours without magic, she was at least going to be looking at something moderately interesting.

Finn and Rey cleaned in silence for the first half hour, the quiet broken only by the squeak of fabric against glass and the rustle of rough-bristled brushes on stone and metal.

“So what’d you do to get detention, anyway?” Finn asked, struggling under the weight of his cleaning supplies as he hauled them to Rey’s side.

Rey shot him a sidelong glance when he started wiping down the trophies one case over. “Does it matter?”

“Well, I mean, I’d think it would matter to you,” Finn said, “since it means you’re stuck with me.” He scrubbed harder at a tarnished Medal for Magical Merit, his small form seeming to sink in on itself.

“What did you do?” Rey asked.

Finn’s hands paused mid-wipe, the medal’s fluttering ribbon trailing limply from his hands like a deflating balloon.

“I punched Teedo in the face.” Finn resumed scrubbing the medal.

“He’s a Slytherin!” Rey looked at Finn, eyes widened in surprise.

“So?” Finn straightened to his full height, all four feet and ten inches of wirey anger. “Just ‘cause he’s my housemate doesn’t mean he gets to...he said some really bad stuff, okay?” Finn replaced the medal in the case, frowning at it like it had personally offended him. “I don’t know what all the words he was saying meant, but I could tell by the way he was saying them that they were definitely bad.”

“You know, you’re not entirely terrible,” Rey said. She turned back to the case and picked up another Quidditch award to polish. Ravenclaw’s Most Valuable Player, 1872-1902. “Why are you in Slytherin?”

Finn shrugged, poorly hiding a smile. “I didn’t know what people say about Slytherin. I was raised in a Muggle orphanage.” Rey had nodded. There was a lot of talk about both of them: nameless orphans raised as Muggles. They could be anyone, from anywhere. If there’s one thing the wizarding world loves, it’s fresh gossip. “The first person I met, well, after Poe Dameron. He helped me find the platform,” Finn added, smile widening. “Anyway, the first person I met on the train was Slip.”

“Oh, yeah, Slip’s not so bad,” Rey offered. Slip came from a long line of Slytherins, but he was always cracking jokes in the classes Hufflepuff shared with the Slytherins. He was funny, but not cruel. Always had a smile on his face. Even loaned Rey a quill in Potions, once, when hers had snapped and she couldn’t find her spare.

“Yeah, and were you listening to the song the Sorting Hat sang?” Rey nodded. “I get that Slytherins are ambitious, which, I mean, that’s not really me, but it talked about how you could find real friends there. So, Slip got sorted first and then when I put on the hat I just...asked. It said that if I really wanted I could probably do well there. Suggested Hufflepuff, first,” he smiled at Rey, “but I’d already made up my mind. I never had friends before coming here,” Finn admitted.

“Me neither,” Rey said, before she could really think about it.

Finn looked shocked, almost dropping his rag. “But you’re so…” He seemed to be fishing for the right word. “Cool! And you’re really good at magic!”

“Being really good at magic meant that before I knew I was a witch I did a lot of accidental magic, which in the Muggle world meant--”

“Everybody treated you like a freak,” Finn finished. “Yeah. Been there. You should’ve seen my case worker’s face when I accidentally deflated all the tyres on his car.”

“That’s nothing!” Rey laughed. “You should’ve seen my fosters’ faces when I blew up their telly!”

They’d passed the rest of their detentions swapping stories about life before Hogwarts. Life before magic was real, before regular meals and a bed that was always going to be yours, before friends.

Friends. Yeah. Looking back, Rey can admit that’s exactly what they were. It makes her chest ache, a little.

 

\--

 

“Can you at least tie my hands in front of me instead of behind my back?” Finn asks, eyeing the ragged ballet slipper on the kitchen table. “I always get Portkey-sickness and it’s gonna be a nightmare to clean up if I can’t at least try brace myself when we land.”

“Yeah, fine.” Rey removes the oven mitt she’d worn to grab the Portkey from the cupboard stash without accidentally activating it. “That way you can hold BB-8 and I can have a better hold on Karé.”

“I’m not touching that thing.” Finn shakes his head, eyes darting around like he thinks BB-8 might be lying in wait. “It wants to eat me.”

“BB-8 isn’t going to eat you.” Rey scowls, nonverbally recasting the incarceration charm, Finn’s arms snapping forward.

“A little warning wouldn’t have gone amiss,” Finn says.

“Go cry to your Dark Lord.” Rey tugs on the ropes around Finn’s arms, feeling an immediate rush of guilt at the way Finn winces, trying to pull away. “And BB-8 wouldn’t eat you. Kneazles have better taste than that.”

Finn’s lips twitch. “Was that a joke?”

“Maybe.” Rey sighs. It’s harder to avoid falling into their old patterns than she thought it would be. “Anyway, BB-8 will be in its carrier, so you just have to hold the handle. I’ll put a featherweight charm on it, even, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Finn agrees. “Are you waking Karé up?”

Rey shakes her head. “I think it’ll be easier on her if she’s out for this. Portkey travel isn’t always the smoothest.”

“Yeah.” Finn’s expression is grim. Rey tries not to remember the half dozen times she’s seen him sick up after Portkey travel. “Is BB-8 loaded up?”

Rey nods and puts one of the oven mitts back on so she can pick up the ballet slipper. “Yeah, on the bed with Karé. I figured that’d be easiest.” She motions for Finn to walk in front of her and they head down the short hall to the bedroom.

After a few minutes of awkward shuffling, Rey has them situationed to her satisfaction. Finn and Rey are standing beside the bed within arm's reach of Karé’s sleeping form. Rey has left elbow hooked between Finn’s bound arms, leaving the hand free to grab the Portkey. Her right hand is clasped firmly around Karé’s wrist. Finn has BB-8’s carrier clasped in his bound hands, the Kneazle quiet after an initial round of hissing.

“Ready?” Rey asks, dropping her oven mitt to the oak floorboards.

“You’re really not going to tell me what Portkey roulette means?” Finn asks, eyeing the slipper on the bedspread with trepidation.

Rey flashes him her brightest, ‘we’re in for trouble’ smile, and checks to make sure her grip on her passengers is firm enough for travel.

“It means I have no idea where this is going to take us,” she tells him, picking up the slipper.

Just before they’re yanked out of sight, Rey catches sight of the resigned look on Finn’s face and laughs straight through transit. She stops laughing when the land in a sprawl of limbs and are greeted with a wand pointed threateningly in their faces.

“What the hell are you doing on my ship?”


	4. The Smuggler

“Tell the man what we’re doing on his ship, Rey.” Finn struggles to his knees, nudging Rey’s shoulder with his bound hands. “Tell him!”

Rey releases Karé’s wrist so she can shove Finn’s hands away. He only manages to stay upright because she shoved him into the side of a cargo container. “Portkey roulette!” she says, eyes crossing to stare at the wand hovering inches from her nose.

“Portkey rou -- dammit.” His eyes turn briefly skyward. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Chewie!” the wizard shouts over one shoulder. He backs off a few paces, keeping his wand pointed at the chaotic pile of annoyances that have landed in the main hold. “Chewie, you get your ass down here, right now!”

A sound like a herd of erumpents heralds the appearance of ‘Chewie,’ who stomps down one of two spiraling, iron staircases at the far end of the hold. He’s well over two meters tall, copper-skinned and broad featured, his head crowned in a thick mass of haphazardly combed brown hair. One of his massive hands is wrapped around a black crossbow the length of Rey’s arm.

“If you ever want me to finish the modifications you asked for,” Chewie says, voice a low rumble, “you have to stop calling me away every five seconds.” He ambles across the dull metal of the hold floor, eyeing the new arrivals, weapon pointed towards the ground. “She need medical attention?” Chewie nods at Karé’s sleeping form.

“She’ll need a Healer sooner rather than later, but at the moment she’s just working off a sleeping draught.” Rey blinks up at the half-giant. “Groundskeeper Chewbacca? Is that a bowcaster? I thought those were illegal.”

“Lots of things are illegal.” Chewie smiles down at her, all teeth, and gives the bowcaster a pat, like you would a faithful dog rather than a weapon. “Unsanctioned use of non-ministerial portkeys, for instance.”

“Chewie,” the wizard’s voice is low and irritated, “want to tell me why you aren’t surprised the poster girl for the Resistance just showed up with...an unconscious Quidditch player, a Kneazle, and a prisoner?” Chewie gives him an unimpressed look and the wizard sighs. “Leia. She should know by now that the Millennium Falcon isn’t a cruise ship or a home for wayward children.”

“This is the Millennium Falcon?” Rey looks around the dingy hold, wrinkling her nose. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” the wizard snaps, finally lowering his wand so he can cross his arms over his chest.

“It’s just a little...older than I pictured,” Rey says.

“Youth isn’t everything, kid.”

“Wait, if this is the Millennium Falcon,” Rey glances at Finn, who’s managed to mostly regain his balance, “then you must be Han Solo!”

“The smuggler?” Finn asks. He frowns, brow furrowing like there’s a memory lurking just out of reach and he can’t quite catch it.

“The war hero!” Rey corrects, looking around the hold with renewed interest. “You are, aren’t you? Han Solo”

“Yeah. Unfortunately for me, I am. Unfortunately for you, your prisoner over there is right. I am a smuggler.” Solo pinches the bridge of his nose. “Which means I’m technically a fugitive and you probably shouldn’t have tried to hitch a ride.”

“We didn’t know we were hitching a ride,” Rey says. “Honest, it’s just the luck of--”

“Portkey roulette, yeah.” Solo tucks his wand inside his leather jacket, turning to Chewie. “This is your fault, isn’t it?”

Chewie shrugs, hooking his bowcaster over one shoulder by its leather strap. “Leia asked if she could set up an emergency portkey.” He smirks, looking between Solo and the hitchhikers. “Said there was hardly any chance someone would have to use it, but she wanted to keep her options open.”

“Of course she did.” Solo looks back to the hitchhikers. “Chewie,” he nods at his copilot, who’s already lifting Karé from the floor, “will settle her in one of the cabins. She’ll be comfortable enough. We’re in the middle of a run, but we can get your girl to a Healer where we’re going. That’s it, though. I’m not running a taxi service, here.”

“Understood, sir.” Rey rises to her feet, eyes on Chewbacca’s retreating back.

“Does he really need to be tied up?” Solo asks, nodding to Finn, who’s still on his knees with his arms bound.

“He’s with the First Order and I found him unattended in a Resistance safe house.”

Solo raises his eyebrows. “Kid doesn’t look like any Stormtrooper I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not a Stormtrooper,” Finn insists, struggling to his feet. “I...I was, but I don’t know. I don’t know why. And I helped Poe Dameron escape. He brought me to the safe house.”

“Well, then, where was he?” Rey demands, getting right up in Finn’s face. “You said he didn’t make it, so how did you get in there? How did the wards get back up? You couldn’t have known how to set them!”

“I don’t--I can’t.” Finn looks suddenly terrified, eyes wide as they dart from Rey and Solo. “I don’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”

 

\--

 

Finn first heard about the Rebellion, not in History of Magic, but from the Head Librarian. C-3PO was one of the freed house-elves who worked at Hogwarts and was, in Finn’s opinion, the chattiest librarian in the world.

“Master Finn, are you quite alright?” The librarian adjusted his waistcoat, a dozen books trailing through the air behind him.

Finn was reading in his favorite window seat, tucked in a back corner where none of the older students would bother him. It was the third day of the holiday break, his first year, and he was one of the few students staying in the dorms. He’d taken to hiding in the library when he realized Unkar and Phasma -- terrifying seventh years who used the sort of ‘bad words’ Finn had punched Teedo for using -- were the only other Slytherins staying through the holidays.

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Thanks, C-3PO.” Finn stuck a finger in his book to save his spot, turning to face the house-elf. “I'm just reading ahead for Professor San Tekka’s class.”

“Oh, A History of Magic. Excellent choice, sir.” C-3PO nodded in approval, bat-like ears flapping. “I’ve always approved of Madame Bagshot’s recounting of the events of the Rebellion. She conducted numerous interviews and, of course, primary sources are incredibly important when taking on a historical event of such a magnitude.”

“The Rebellion?” Finn asked, leaning forward.

“Why, Master Finn, you know nothing of the Rebellion?” C-3PO’s spindly fingers trembled, curling together against his chest.

Finn shook his head. “Muggle-born.”

“Oh, quite.” C-3PO looked flustered. “I suppose you haven’t reached the 20th century in Professor San Tekka’s class?”

“We just covered the International Statute of Secrecy, so we’re still in the 17th century,” Finn said.

“Ah. Ah, I see. Well, it’s a rather lengthy tale.” C-3PO tapped the tip of his nose with his forefinger.

“I’m here all break,” Finn said. “I’ve got time. That is, if you wouldn’t mind. I...I wouldn’t want to bother you if you’re busy.”

C-3PO looked around the library, empty but for them and the books, and smiled. He waved a hand, sending his trailing books off to their proper shelves. With another wave he conjured a squishy-looking armchair, perfectly elf-sized, and sat down. “Well, how to begin? Ah, yes. Ahem. Not so very long ago…”

Finn spent the rest of his afternoons over the break with C-3PO, learning all about the heroes and villains of the wizarding world. He learned about how Groundskeeper Chewbacca used to be a smuggler, and how he and his friend, a wizard named Han Solo, used their illegally enchanted boat -- “the Millennium Falcon is a ship, not a boat, Master Finn” -- to carry messages and personnel for the Rebellion. He learned about Darth Vader, who would haunt Finn’s dreams for years. He learned about how a bunch of his professors were actually really powerful witches and wizards who’d worked to force all the Dark wizards from the Ministry of Magic where they could hurt people.

“And you’re telling me that this Leia’s our Headmistress?” Finn asked around a mouthful of custard creams.

R2-D2, the Head Pastry Chef, had joined them that afternoon with a loaded platter of biscuits, hot cider, and pumpkin juice. C-3PO hemmed and hawed about the mess, but Finn saw how many ginger nuts he'd eaten.

“The very same,” C-3PO nodded, a worshipful expression on his face. “And after the Rebels overthrew Minister Palpatine, General Organa--”

“General?”

“Oh, I suppose it was never an official title,” C-3PO waved a dismissive hand, “but that’s what we all called her. Headmistress Organa. She saw to it that all house-elves were freed. Many of us stayed with our current masters, like R2-D2 and myself,” R2-D2 nodded, sagely, refilling Finn’s glass of pumpkin juice, “but now we are paid. If we serve a master it’s because we choose to do so.”

“That’s brilliant! So my Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher--”

“We have Master Luke to thank for the removal of the insidious yoke of the Dark wizards,” C-3PO said, wiping stray crumbs from around Finn’s plate with a little sigh. "Along with many others, of course, but Professor Skywalker was instrumental in the Rebellion's success. You're quite fortunate to be one of his students. He's one of the world's foremost experts in nonverbal magic and in the arts of Legilimency and Occlumency."

“That's so awesome. I just...it's weird. It’s hard to believe any of that actually happened,” Finn said, frowning down into his pumpkin juice. “How did those Dark wizards get so powerful?”

C-3PO and R2-D2 exchanged looks. “Well,” C-3PO looked thoughtful. “There are certain things a Dark wizard may be willing to do which can increase their magical strength. As to their societal power, well. No one wants to admit that someone they’ve trusted and placed in a position of authority is actually doing more harm than good. A great deal of Palpatine’s original platform was about making wizarding society ‘great again,’ which sounds alright until you realize he meant enslaving all non-wizards and getting rid of half-bloods and Muggle-borns.”

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends,” R2-D2 said, speaking for the first time that day, “than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

 

\--

 

“Darth Vader did this a lot during the Rebellion,” Solo says, guiding Finn into one of the bolted-down canvas lounges on the deck. Under any other conditions Rey would be incredibly distracted by the fact that she’s on the deck of an invisible ship soaring through the clouds somewhere over Cornwall. As it is, she’s only mildly distracted by the flock of grey herons ducking beneath the hull. “Memory modification spells and potions. Even a bog standard obliviation or memory extraction can react badly if you’ve been under the influence of Dark magic. Do you remember them using any Dark magic on you when you were with the First, kid?”

Finn swallows and nods, slowly. “They...most of us weren’t volunteers. There were some from the old families, Hux, Phasma, you know,” he waves a hand, “and they were fanatical, but. I can’t even remember how I got there. I know they did a lot of...most of us were under _Imperius_ most of the time. And we all got daily potions, but I don’t know what they were. Everything’s really...fuzzy.”

Rey has to close her eyes at the lost expression on Finn’s face. She should’ve known better. When Finn had grown distant during seventh year she’d chalked it up to growing up. Everyone was moving on, lining up jobs. It wasn’t personal. But she knew Finn, really knew him. What kind of patient, just, and loyal friend was she, assuming the worst when one of her best friends suddenly underwent a total personality transplant? Helga Hufflepuff would be ashamed.

When Rey opens her eyes, Solo’s face looks grim. “I’m not saying you can definitely trust him, because even if what he’s saying is true he’s likely under some kind of compulsion with an external trigger.” Finn bites back a whimper, turning from them, hunching on the lounge chair. Solo’s jaw clenches and he leads Rey to the railing, out of Finn’s hearing. “The Healer where we’re headed, she’s good. Maz is real good. I swear by her, but this is some long-term St. Mungo’s type stuff your boy’s got going on upstairs. And I gotta be honest, St. Mungo’s isn’t exactly a safe place for him or you right about now.”

Rey nods, eyes flicking to Finn. “How much longer until we get where we’re going?”

There’s a knocking sound on the glass surrounding the wheelhouse. Rey and Solo turn to see Chewie, who’s making a series of hand signals.

“Well, we’re about to start our descent, so hang on and we’ll be coming in over Tinworth in less than ten minutes.” Solo excuses himself, giving Rey an awkward pat on the shoulder, and goes to join Chewie on the bridge.

Rey walks back to Finn, who’s curled on his side, face turned away from her. She sits, careful not to jostle him. He stiffens when she touches his bound arms, but relaxes when the ropes loosen and vanish. Finn looks at her with red-rimmed eyes and offers her a small, watery smile that makes Rey’s stomach twist like a kappa’s tail.

“I’m not.” Rey swallows and tries again. “I’m not saying I can trust you, because we both know I can’t, at least not yet.” Finn ducks his head. “But I am saying I’m sorry that I believed the worst of you when you hadn’t given me any cause.”

“I was a Slytherin,” Finn says. “Did you really need one?”

“Yes,” Rey replies, fiercely, taking Finn’s hands in hers. “Yes, I needed one. Hufflepuffs don’t give up on their friends. I never thought I was the sort of person who’d give up on my friends, but I did, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And I’m going to do everything I can to fix this. Okay?”

Finn’s brown eyes study her face for a long moment before he nods. “Okay.”

It’s a nice moment until the Millennium Falcon slams to an abrupt halt and drops like a stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R2-D2 quotes John Stuart Mill’s inaugural address at the University of St. Andrews in 1867. ‘Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.’ It’s one of many versions of the ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’ quote most often attributed to Edmund Burke.


	5. Let Me Do the Talking and Whatever You Do, Don’t Stare

“Is it supposed to be doing this?” Finn shouts over the wailing of the wind.

“I don’t think so!” Rey shouts back, turning towards the wheelhouse. She can see Han and Chewie shouting at each other through the glass, hands flying across the bridge consoles. “Stay here and hold on!”

Rey makes her wobbling way across the deck to the wheelhouse, sliding the last few feet to the door when they tilt starboard. Is it still starboard if they’re flying? She pulls the door open with difficulty, managing to get inside just before they tilt sharply to the portside. To port? Not like the terminology matters if the whole damn ship’s going to crash, anyway.

“Anything I can do to help?” Rey asks, trainers skidding across the cracked linoleum tiles.

“Keep him from blowing himself up, would you?” Chewie asks, pointing at Solo, who looks away from the consoles just long enough to scowl at his co-pilot. Chewie rolls his eyes and hurries out the opposite door of the wheelhouse.

“What do you know about flying charms?” Solo asks, using his wand to poke inside an open panel.

“That they’re highly unstable if performed incorrectly. Even when performed correctly they're highly complex, multi-layered, and often involve the use of potions in the creation process." Rey frowns in concentration. "At least that's the case when you're talking about longer-term use flying items, like brooms, Healer stretchers, or carpets. They’re likely to fail when interacting with Muggle technology.”

Solo blinks at her. “You’ll do.” He waves her forward and points at a tangled mass of wires inside the panel. “I think we’ve got a faulty interaction, maybe a short in the section of the console I used to ground the primary flying charm. Thank Merlin the environmental controls are functioning, or we’d all need bubble-head charms. Let me see your hands.”

Rey looks down at her hands, confused by this seeming non sequitur, but holds them out for inspection.

“That’ll work better. Your hands are freakishly small.” Rey scowls. Solo blandly indicates the open panel he’d been digging in with his wand. “It’s not a bad thing, at least not right now. Look in there and see if you can find any signs of damage: anything that’s bent, split, fraying, or disconnected. You got it?”

“I've got it.” Rey starts digging through the wires while Solo casts a diagnostic charm, frowning at the hovering charts and figures that spring to life over the console.

“Should I be worrying?” Finn asks, opening the door.

“I told you not to move!” Rey turns her head to frown at him, hands still deep in the Falcon’s wiring.

“If I’m going to die, I’m not doing it sitting on a deck chair.” Finn looks at Solo. “Am I gonna die on this boat?”

“The Millennium Falcon is not a boat.” Solo, eyes still on his diagnostics, jerks a thumb in the direction of a white cabinet bolted to the back wall of the wheelhouse. “Grab one of the emergency brooms and a couple of life vests, then get your sleeping friend. I want everybody to be prepared in case we have to abandon ship.”

“On it.” Finn rifles through the cabinet and hurries out the door, doing a better job of keeping his footing than Rey managed. Must be the boots.

“Are we likely to abandon ship?” Rey asks, casting a nonverbal _Lumos_ to better illuminate a handful of wires.

“Haven’t before, but there’s a first time for everything,” Solo grumbles.

“I think I’ve got it,” Rey says. “If I can just bypass -- ”

“Wait, before you -- ”

Rey reconnects two ends of a split wire with a muttered _R_ _eparo_ and the Falcon zooms forward, knocking Rey and Solo off their feet.

“ -- fix it we should turn off the engine.” Solo shoots her a look that’s equal parts exasperated and relieved. Rey thinks he probably spends a lot of time with that expression, sailing around in this bucket of bolts. “Because that can happen,” he adds, rising to his feet, knees popping in protest at the rough treatment.

“Right.” Rey remains sprawled on the wheelhouse floor. The steady thrum of the engines is soothing against her aching back. The Falcon’s system of enchantments pulse happily in the back of Rey's mind as the ship regains its equilibrium, returns to its steady descent. Rey throws an arm over her eyes, breathing hard, and does a poor job of suppressing a smile. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

 

\--

 

Life as a ward of court was rarely easy and even more rarely happy. Rey had few fond memories of her life before Hogwarts. The ones she clung to generally revolved around finding and fixing things.

One of her better fosters -- a junior school teacher who would’ve kept Rey on longer if she didn’t have four of her own to feed on her paltry salary -- talked admiringly about Rey’s ‘knack’ for finding unloved, discarded things and mending them. Rey found the missing bits and damaged places and somehow managed to make them whole again. Toys, lamps, radios, even a rusted out ‘81 Vauxhall Astra that ran more days than not once Rey took to tinkering beneath the bonnet.

Rey’s projects -- ‘miserable rubbish’ she never should’ve dragged back to the flat, according to more than one of the more miserable fosters -- made her, if not quite happy, content, whether she got to keep the results of her work or not. That was good, since more often than not the spoils went to someone else. Rey got better at hiding her finds over the years.

It wasn’t until Rey met Professor Wexley, who taught both Charms and Introduction to Broom Flight, that she learned her knack was mostly magic. Magic meant it was something she could learn to shape and control. Magic she could use to find, to aid and repair.

“That sort of accidental magic isn’t unheard of in Muggle-born students,” Professor Wexley explained when Rey first asked about her knack. “More useful than most I’ve heard of, but definitely a sign of a natural propensity for charms.” He looked pleased at that, smiling down at her.

“You think so?” Rey wrinkled her nose. “I thought I was maybe going to be better in Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“You may very well be adept at Defense, but a knack for charms work is nothing to stick up your nose at. The applications are virtually limitless. Charms are the spellwork you’ll use most often in daily life, once you graduate from Hogwarts. They can help you with domestic chores, like cleaning and cooking, but they can be equally helpful in an office setting: sorting and finding and duplicating documents, and the like,” Professor Wexley explained, casting an  _Alohomora_ to unlock the broomshed.

Rey had stayed after Charms to ask him about her knack and he offered to listen as long as she didn’t mind walking out to the Quidditch pitch. “There are practical applications to all of your studies, of course.” He flicked his wand into the shed and stepped aside as a dozen-odd brooms flew out and lined themselves neatly on the close-cropped grass of the pitch. “But once you understand the basics of a charm you can adapt it to a multitude of uses.”

“So once I can levitate a feather I’ll be able to make other things fly?” Rey asked. “Is that how brooms work?”

Professor Wexley smiled and closed the broomshed door. “On the most fundamental level, yes. The enchantments on brooms are multi-layered and more complicated, often combined with potions during the creation process. Transfigured materials aren't recommended, so a lot of the broom crafting is done by hand. There are a number of safety concerns when it comes to flying, so the work is more complex. Much more time consuming than a quick _Leviosa_.”

“So are any of the basic charms actually useful?” Rey asked.

Professor Wexley laughed and Rey had the good grace to blush. “Well, I always thought the Four-Point was handy in a pinch.” He adjusted his grip so his wand was resting on his hand, palm up and fingers loose. “ _Point me_.” The wand rose a few inches above his hand and spun before pointing towards the Slytherin stands. “Due North. Go ahead and try it.”

Rey fumbled her wand from her left sleeve and laid it across her palm. “ _Point me_.” The wand wavered for a few moments before spinning and pointing in the same direction as Professor Wexley’s.

“Fairly useful. And if you can do the basic charm you can adapt it. It takes a bit more concentration, but repeated use with the same wand can ease the process.  _Point me home_.” Professor Wexley’s wand spun in circles and came to rest pointing towards the Hufflepuff stands. “Surrey. I grew up in Egham and my mum still lives there. Commutes to the Ministry by floo. You can give it a go, see which way your home is from here.”

Rey shook her head and muttered, “ _Finite Incantatum_ ,” letting her wand drop back to her small palm. “That’s alright, Professor.” She looked back at the castle, with its sloping lawns and its impossible towers, its noisy corridors and cozy common rooms filled to the brim with everyone in the world she might possibly call ‘friend.’ “I already know where home is.”

 

\--

 

“It's late and this is Tinworth,” Solo says, irritably, which Rey’s beginning to suspect is his default setting. “Trust me, the locals are used to weirder stuff than sudden fog.”

The Millennium Falcon had descended in a cloud of, well, cloud and disillusionment charms. Even with the Invisibility Booster working Chewie had insisted there were too many Muggles about to risk it after the flying charms malfunctioned.

“Alright,” Rey agrees, adjusting her hold around Karé’s waist. “How you feeling?”

“Like I got tossed through a wall by half a dozen Stormtroopers and then spent a day getting jerked around through apparitions and portkey travel,” Karé says. She leans into Rey’s side, but is managing most of her weight on her own as they walk. “Oh, wait. That’s exactly what happened!”

Chewie snorts. “I’m staying with the Falcon. Need to get working on a more permanent fix.”

“Well, sure, stick me with the children,” Solo says, walking down the gangway. Chewie makes a rude hand gesture and waves them off, disappearing into the wheelhouse.

“Alright, Takodana is just down the way.” Solo nods at the footpath leading into Tinworth. “Now, listen, Maz Kanata’s a Resistance sympathizer and a good person, so she’ll help, but this is Tinworth. You get all sorts in these wizarding communities that grew up alongside Muggle towns. Keeping your mouth shut about who you are and what you're doing isn't the worst idea in the world.” Solo slows as they pass an apothecary. The rest of them stumble on the uneven cobblestones when he comes to a sudden stop, peering down the alley between the apothecary and a small wine shop. “Maz is a bit of an acquired taste, so let me do the talking and whatever you do, don’t stare.”

“At what?” Finn and Rey ask. Karé snorts and exchanges an amused glance with Solo.

“Any of it,” Solo says, tapping his wand on one of the stones paving the alleyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders.


	6. I Assume You Need Something

Finn and Rey do a very poor job of not staring at the castle courtyard that springs into view. There are some things about the wizarding world that will never seem quite normal, and the sudden appearance of a castle, effortlessly pushing the wine shop and apothecary to either side, is one of them. 

“Welcome to Takodana,” Karé says. She leans a little harder into Rey’s side, but offers up a tired smile when Rey shoots the diminutive witch a worried look. “Best watering hole in Cornwall. The team always comes here after matches against the Falcons.”

There are hundreds of flags fluttering against the courtyard and castle walls. Rey spots a Saint Piran’s flag alongside a Falmouth Falcons banner, both far less puzzling than the bunting with letters spelling out ‘hyrl î an yw gen gwar é nyi.’ The fabric scraps extend all the way to the top of a statue-topped spire. Said statue depicts a berobed, bespectacled figure with arms spread wide and a welcoming smile on its wizened, stoney face.

“Well, we’re not hanging out here all night,” Solo grumbles, leading the way across the ancient flagstones of the courtyard. He glances back at Karé, who’s leaning pretty heavily against Rey, and his frown deepens. “Try not to look like you’ve been thrown through a wall, recently.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Karé says, flashing him a bright smile. She also flips him a two fingered salute with the hand draped over Rey’s shoulder. “Open the door, old man.”

The corner of Solo’s mouth twitches in what might be a smile and he shoves the doors open with both hands.

Finn and Rey continue their tradition of gaping like first years as they step inside. The room they enter is sprawling and high-ceilinged, with a massive, oak bar at the center of the room. A variety of tables, chairs, and the odd couch are grouped together. Nearly every seat in the place is filled. Rey’s never seen so many different types of beings in one place before. There’re the usual crowds of savory and not-so-savory witches and wizards, a fair number of goblins -- which is a bit odd, for a wizarding bar -- and in one corner she spots a cluster of ghosts. They're conversing animatedly with what might be a hag and a gaunt figure in an overcoat with a glass of something suspiciously red.

“Is that--” Finn’s throat is working in that way it does right before he’s going to be sick.

“Don’t look,” Rey orders when she sees the hag take a bit of raw liver.

Finn nods and looks away, pressing his lips together and breathing slowly through his nose.

“Is your friend about?” Karé asks Solo. Her face, skin normally a Quidditch-tanned olive, looks jaundiced against the dark sweep of her hair. “I think I could use a bit of a lie down, if there’s a back room or someplace I could use.”

“We could all use a bit of a kip,” Rey agrees. She scans the room, wondering what sort of person would own this place, be a Resistance sympathizer, and be friends with a man like Han Solo.

“Hold onto your knickers,” Solo says, his own eyes searching the overstuffed room. “I’m sure Maz is around here, someplace.”

“Han Solo!” 

The room goes dead silent, its occupants turning as one to stare. Rey tries very hard to look dangerous, or at least like she knows what she’s doing, confident and cool. She doubts she pulls it off half so well as Solo. Hopefully nobody hexes them before they even get a chance to meet this Maz person. 

 

\--

 

Rey didn’t learn to love flying in their lessons at Hogwarts. It’s hard to love anything when you’re working with rickety old Comets with all the responsiveness of an ancient Augurey. No, Rey learned to love flying when she learned about Quidditch. The first Quidditch match Rey ever bothered to watch was the Championship game her first year. It was Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw and she watched it with Finn.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Rey asked, following Finn up the winding stairs to the stands. She’d bundled up in multiple sweaters, her robes, her cloak, and her Hufflepuff scarf. She looked like a cross between a bumblebee and a marshmallow, but at least she wouldn’t freeze in the harsh spring wind. “We don’t know anything about Quidditch and neither of our houses are even playing. It’s not like either of us has a horse in this race, unless you’re worried about the house points they award the champions, or something.”

“I know a bit about Quidditch,” Finn argued, climbing down until they were at the front of the Hufflepuff stands. Finn was much more accepted by the Hufflepuffs than Rey was by the Slytherins. Not that she cared. Well, she cared when they jinxed her, but other than that, not really. “I’ve been to every match this year.”

“Really?” Rey couldn’t remember Finn ever mentioning Quidditch until recently. She’d been in the middle of tossing him out of her weekly Exploding Snap game in the Hufflepuff Commons -- the boy had no poker face to speak of, it was pitiful, really -- when Finn had invited her to watch the Championship game. Feeling a bit bad about ejecting him from the card game, she’d agreed. So of course they had the coldest spring in three decades and Rey was going to freeze to death watching a bunch of kids flying around with stupidly shaped balls. Why had they built the stupid school in Scotland, anyway? 

“Yes, really.” Finn smiled and sat down, rubbing his hands together. “And, anyway, I sort of have a horse in this race. Poe Dameron’s the Gryffindor Seeker.”

“Did you just refer to the most handsome bloke at Hogwarts as a horse?”

Finn grimaced and shook his head. “I just meant I’m rooting for Poe. You were the one with the horse metaphors.”

“Right.” Rey realized that once they were sitting it wasn’t actually as could as it should be. There must be warming charms on the stands. She smiled and sent silent thanks to Professor Wexley. “And you’re rooting for Poe because why? Got a bit of a crush?”

Finn looked like he’d enjoy nothing more than to have the earth open up and swallow him whole, but he was saved from answering by Slip’s noisy arrival.

“Hello, you darlings of the Inter-House Friendship Committee,” Slip said, collapsing onto the bench beside Finn in a sprawl of long limbs. He’d neglected to wear anything over his uniform robes in defiance of the frigid temperature.

“There’s no such thing as the Inter-House Friendship Committee, you git,” Pamich argued, sitting next to Rey with a small smile of greeting. She adjusted her ear muffs, freeing some of her wild, black curls from being squashed. “And you’re going to freeze to death.” She uncoiled her Gryffindor scarf and half-strangled Slip before he took it from her and tied it around his neck, himself.

“Thanks, Mum.” 

Slip laughed when Pamich stuck her tongue out at him and Rey wondered what it would be like for nobody to bat an eye when you spent time with someone from another house. She supposed it was different when you were cousins. Of course, nobody seemed to think it was odd that Rey was sitting in the Hufflepuff stands with two Slytherins and a Gryffindor.

“So, who’re you rooting for?” Rey asked Slip.

“Well, my new scarf and my enthusiastic friend, Finn the Dameron fanboy, here,” Finn buried his face in his mitten-covered hands, “would suggest Gryffindor, but I’m torn, Rey, darling.”

“Don’t call me darling,” Rey said, deadpan.

Pamich snickered as Slip continued as if Rey hadn’t spoken. “But there are, of course, the familial alliances to consider.” Slip clutched one hand to his chest and shot Rey a look he probably meant to convey the torture of torn loyalties, but mostly made him look sick to his stomach. “We Slytherin gits are supposed to care about that rot, right, Pamich?”

“Oh, certainly,” Pamich nodded, mouth quirked in a crooked smile. She seemed quite inured to Slip’s antics. “Of course, I’m not a Slytherin, so I can get away with cheering for everyone. I’ve got my housemates in Gryffindor, like Poe and Karé, but then Jess is one of the Ravenclaw Chasers.”

“Jessika Pava, right?” Rey asked, raising her voice as the stands began to fill up and it grew harder to hear.

Pamich nodded. “That one there, with the ridiculously long ponytail.” She pointed towards the pitch, where the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor players were gathering around Professor Wexley, who’d be serving as referee. “And the blonde girl with the buns standing next to her is my friend Kaydel. She grew up in Godric’s Hollow with us. This is her first year as a Beater. Pretty impressive, tiny fourth year like that, right?”

“I guess.” Rey glanced to her right, but Finn was caught up in a spirited discussion with Slip. They were debating some sort of tactics with names that all sounded made up, at least to her. “To be honest,” she told Pamich, voice lowered, “I’ve never actually come to one of these before. I know next to nothing about Quidditch.”

“Well, that’s alright.” Pamich smiled at her, turning back to the pitch as the players and Professor Wexley rose into the air. “Everyone has to start somewhere. Ask me questions whenever you like. Finn’s going to forget anyone else is here as soon as the whistle blows. He just stares at Dameron, which can’t be that exciting, he mostly circles until someone spots the Snitch. Oh, here we are. I think you'll like this, Rey. They’re starting.”

The next three hours were among the most illuminating of Rey’s young life. She knew they were just students, and so probably not very good, but a few of them must be talented. They made flying look beautiful, natural as breathing. Rey supposed she could even see what Finn saw in Poe Dameron. He was always smiling, wide and free and happy. The smiling made Rey feel a bit uncomfortable, but when he flew it was like he and the broom were one and the same. Like he’d love nothing so well as to stay up in the air forever.

Someday Rey wanted to love something that much.

 

\--

 

“It is! Han Solo!”

Rey doesn’t see the speaker for a moment, but then her eyes widen. A goblin -- dressed in wizard-style robes and with a pair of truly spectacular modified Omnioculars strapped to her face -- has scrambled to the top of the bar and is standing with her hands on her hips.

Solo shuts his eyes, tilting his face up. “Oh, boy.” He opens his eyes and flashes the goblin a wide smile, waving the hand that isn’t clasped, white-knuckled, around his wand. “Hey, Maz!”

The room takes this as its cue to return to its regularly scheduled eating and drinking, and the noise level returns to just shy of deafening. Rey watches as the goblin, Maz, hops down from the bar and ambles her way across the room. Her mouth widens in a welcoming, if slightly terrifying and toothy, grin.

“Where’s my boyfriend?” Maz asks, tilting her head back to look up at Solo’s face.

“Chewie’s working on the Falcon,” Solo replies, mouth tilting into what is definitely more smile than smirk.

Maz’s eyes flick over each of them, huge and sea green behind the lenses of her Omnioculars. And that must be what they are, Rey decides, watching the lenses flip up and down when Maz’s head moves, automatically shifting with the light. A snatch of something from a textbook flits through her mind, goblins and light sensitivity. She wonders if the Omnioculars are Maz's own handiwork, since goblins are so gifted with metalworking.

“I like that half-giant,” Maz says, smile going a bit dreamy around the edges. “I assume you need something,” she adds to Solo, who shrugs. Maz snorts and turns her gaze to Karé, then Rey, and stops on Finn. Finn stares back down at her, his shoulders stiff like he’s bracing for a blow. “Desperately.” Maz turns her huge eyes back to Solo and nods. “Let’s get to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tinworth is a half-magical village on the coast of Cornwall in the Harry Potter universe, most familiar as the location of Shell Cottage. The bunting spelling out ‘hyrlîan yw gen gwaré nyi’ is a reference to the Cornish language saying, ‘hurling is our sport.’ Hurling is a game of Celtic origin exclusively played in Cornwall. It's precisely the sort of [weird Muggle thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kido1rquo0I) I could imagine Maz loving.


	7. If You Live Long Enough

Rey’s shoulders unclench at the familiar sound of Karé’s gentle snoring. “Thank you, Madame Kanata.” Maz had led them up a small, well-hidden staircase at the back of Takodana’s main room to her own quarters. She’d left Han, Finn, and Rey to cool their heels in the kitchen while she quickly assessed and treated Karé in one of the bedrooms down the hall.

Maz snorts. “Just Maz.” The goblin looks up at Rey with a crooked, sharp-toothed grin. “And a few potions and a healing charm or two is nothing to be thankful for, child.”

“I’m thankful all the same, Maz,” Rey replies with an incline of her head. She’s not well-versed in goblin etiquette, but she guesses a full bow would probably be too much. Rey sits in one of the mismatched, human-sized chairs around the kitchen’s small, wooden table and tries not to blush.

Maz turns to Solo, who’s sitting with his chair tipped back on two legs. “I like the girl.” She kicks one of Solo’s chair legs and his arms pinwheel until he regains his balance with a scowl. “You should keep her, Han.”

“Girl’s not mine to keep,” Solo replies, voice gruff, but he looks at Rey with something like approval in his hazel eyes. “But good to know where you stand.”

Maz hums, thoughtfully, before climbing onto the kitchen table to sit directly in front of Finn.

“What’s this?” Finn freezes, staring into Maz’s Omniocular-covered eyes. “What are you doing?”

Maz sighs and taps a button on one of the Omniocular’s arms, sending all of the lenses up and away so she can study Finn with her unaltered sight.

“Solo, what is she doing?” Finn asks, not looking away from Maz, who’s settled with her legs crossed and her chin cupped in the palms of her hands.

“I don’t know,” Solo says, letting his chair drop back onto all four legs, “but it ain’t good.”

Rey tries not to fidget as the silence stretches on for several minutes, Maz staring unblinkingly into Finn’s wide brown eyes. Finally Maz hums, again, and scrambles off of the table and into the goblin-sized chair opposite Solo. She taps the same Omniocular button and the lenses slide back into place.

“If you live long enough you see the same eyes in different people,” Maz says, still looking at Finn, angular head tilted to one side. “I have lived, by your human standards, a very long time. What’s your name, child?”

“Finn Cross.” Finn’s eyes dart to Rey and back. “My name’s Finn, ma’am.”

“Well, Finn Cross,” Maz says, leaning back in her chair, “I’ve seen eyes like yours before. You’re a man without a past. It’s been plucked,” Maz makes a grasping motion with her thumb and forefinger, “right from between your ears. Sloppy work. Very sloppy work." She clucks her tongue and shakes her head in disapproval. "They don’t have the recruiting power they once had in this fight.”

“They who? What fight?” Rey asks, looking between Finn -- who’s still staring, frozen, at Maz -- and the goblin.

“The only fight,” Maz says, breaking her gaze from Finn, who takes a gasping breath and slumps against the back of his chair. “Against the dark side. They take up what names suit them, but you know them as the First Order. They’ve been beaten back, before, only to rise under a new guise. We must face them. Fight them.” Maz’s mouth twists into a moue of distaste. “All of us.”

“There is no fight against the First Order,” Finn says, voice rough and low. “Not one that we can win. There’s no chance we haven’t been recognized, already. I bet the First Order is on their way right -- ”

“The instinct to run is a good one, Finn Cross.” Maz silences Finn with a stern look. “It’s no doubt why you’re still alive. But you know. Underneath the haze they’ve woven over you, underneath the memory modifications and the remnants of dulling potions, you know better. Don’t you, young wizard?”

“Yes,” Finn says. “I know better. But you don’t know the First Order like I do. They’ll slaughter us. If we were smart, we’d all run.”

“Well, that settles it, then,” Solo says, slapping his palms down on the rough-hewn table with a wide, mirthless grin. “We’re definitely too dumb to run.”

 

\--

 

Rey never intended to join the Resistance. By her fifth year there was talk of rising hate crimes against muggle-borns, of corrupt influences infiltrating the government, of ‘the old guard’ quietly gathering in the shadows to stop the spread of darkness. Rey very carefully kept her head down, studying for her O.W.L.s, trying for high enough marks that she’d be eligible for a low-level position at the Ministry. She thought she might like something in Magical Games and Sports, or maybe with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad could be interesting. She'd always had a knack for fixing things.

“Rey, might I have a moment of your time?” Rey looked up from her Potions essay to see Headmistress Organa standing beside her favorite table in the library.

“Of course, Headmistress.” Rey stood. “Here?”

“My office would be preferable, if it’s not too much of an imposition.”

Rey had only ever exchanged a few words with Headmistress Organa -- tiny and terrifying, with intelligent brown eyes and silvering dark hair wound into elaborate, braided updos at all times -- but she was fairly certain this was out of the ordinary.

“Of course not, Headmistress,” Rey said, shoving her textbook and essay into her satchel. She winced at the crumpling noise that meant she’d likely crushed her scroll and smeared ink all over her textbooks.

Headmistress Organa raised an amused eyebrow, but nodded. She led the way out of the library, largely deserted in the Saturday morning quiet, to her office. The only words she uttered on the journey were a murmured greeting as they passed Rey’s History of Magic teacher, Professor San Tekka, outside the Great Hall and her password -- ‘Fambaa Delight’.

“Have a seat, Rey.” Headmistress Organa motioned to one of the imposingly straight-backed chairs in front of her desk. “I’m going to get right down to it, if that’s alright with you,” she added, sitting in the chair beside Rey, rather than behind the desk.

“I, well, sure.” Rey repressed the need to fidget, lacing her fingers together to keep from tapping them against her legs or the arms of her chair.

“Do you know why Professor Skywalker left after last term?”

Rey didn’t know what she expected the Headmistress to ask, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“No. Well,” Rey amended, “sort of. I’d heard that Professor Sella offered to take over Defense and his duties as Head of Gryffindor so he could take a sabbatical, but that’s all.”

Headmistress Organa nodded, her dark eyes never straying from Rey’s face. “That’s true, but that’s not why he left. You’ve completed your history unit on the Rebellion, correct?” Rey nodded. “So you know about our involvement?”

“Yes, ma’am.” As if anyone who’d been in the wizarding world for more than a few weeks could manage not to hear the tale of the long-separated twins joining together against the powers of darkness to dismantle an evil regime and defeat a dark lord before they'd turned twenty-five. “At least what’s in Professor San Tekka’s curriculum.”

“Well, Luke -- Professor Skywalker. He takes a very personal view of the conflict with the dark side. With good reason,” Headmistress Organa allowed, mouth drooping at the corners, “but damnably inconvenient.” Rey blinked. It was the first time she’d heard one of the staff members swear. Well, aside from Groundskeeper Chewbacca. “One of his former students has been...recruited by the First Order. Professor Skywalker felt that if he had failed so spectacularly -- his words, not mine -- with his closest protégé then he wasn’t fit to teach the next generation of the light.”

“That’s stupid,” Rey said, the words out of her mouth almost before they'd sprung to mind. She slapped a hand over her mouth.

To her shock, Headmistress Organa just laughed, head tipping back and shoulders shaking. In that moment, she was the stunning, bright-eyed general from the pictures in Rey’s History text: bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders and refusing to flinch. In that moment, Rey thought _I would follow her to the ends of the earth_. The thought terrified her, but she couldn’t shake it. Fealty is an old-fashioned notion and yet it matched Rey's feelings. She would gladly pledge hers to General Organa, leader of the Resistance. Some truths cannot be buried. Some of the old ways refuse to die.

“Yes. It is stupid,” Headmistress Organa agreed. “You can stop looking like I'm going to assign you detention until the end of your days. I value forthrightness. Nearly as much as I value talent and power. It’s the Slytherin in me, I suppose. And now I know you possess all three valuable traits in spades.” The headmistress’s smile fell away, leaving her face drawn and serious once more. “There’s a war coming, Rey.”

“I was worried you’d say that.”

Headmistress Organa didn’t smile, but one corner of her mouth twitched. “We’ve already gathered the remnants of the Rebellion, but we need new blood. I mean that literally and figuratively.”

“I don’t know if I like where this is going,” Rey said.

“You probably won’t.” The headmistress studied her for a long, silent moment. “Rey, I’m asking you to join the Resistance.”

“Damn,” Rey said, slumping in her chair. “I thought that might be it.”

 

\--

 

Rey can hear Finn pacing through the thin walls. Maz offered them a place to sleep for the night -- sending Solo off to retrieve ‘her boyfriend’ and Poe’s Kneazle from the Falcon -- and gave Rey and Finn small rooms down the hall from Karé.

Rey carefully places her satchel on the quilt covering the twin-sized bed and looks out the window. There shouldn’t be a window in this room, at all, Rey’s fairly sure, but it gives her a nice view of some rolling hills and a star-scattered sky. She won’t complain. She’s been watching clouds drift across the familiar constellations when the sound of crying draws her instantly to the hall. The noise isn’t coming from Karé or Finn’s rooms, but from the dark corridor on the other side of the kitchen.

The crying sound comes again, and Rey doesn’t think it’s Maz, but she can’t be sure. She pulls her wand from her left sleeve, holding it at the ready as she follows the sound. It leads her to the last door at the end of the corridor. Rey casts a nonverbal _Alohomora_ and pauses for only a moment before turning the handle. She enters and her mouth drops open. The room’s ceilings are at least as high as the Great Hall in Hogwarts, vaulted and enchanted to mimic the night sky. It must be a specialty of Maz's, or of whoever originally built the castle. Every wall is covered in deep, floor to ceiling shelves, overflowing with all kinds of artifacts and unknown treasures. Out of everything in the room, Rey finds herself drawn to a plain wooden box sitting atop a battered trunk, the kind Hogwarts students use to haul all of their worldly possessions to school and back again.

The box isn't talking to her, not exactly, which is a relief. One of the first things she learned in Defense was not to trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain. But there are artifacts which resonate in powerful ways, and Rey is certain one rests inside this box. She undoes the latch and opens the lid with a soft creak of long disused hinges.

Rey hesitates, knowing this could be some sort of trap, but can’t help grasping the wand that lies inside. That’s when the world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not trusting 'anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain' is sound advice from Arthur Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.


	8. It's Always Been There

There is nothing but the dark.

It isn’t the darkness of Rey’s dormitory bed with the curtains drawn or the woods at night with only the distant pinprick winks of starlight in the sky. It isn’t the near-black when she closes her eyes to sleep or the passageways between the Hufflepuff cellars and the Slytherin dungeons when the torches have all but burnt down to ash.

It is the close, suffocating nothingness that comes from an utter absence of light.

For a dizzying, disorienting moment Rey is enveloped in darkness, in total silence. Just when she thinks she may go mad from the absence of outside stimuli she hears it. It’s strange and yet utterly familiar. It’s the sound of the first day in Professor Wexley’s class: the swift, precise displacement of air as a roomful of students swish and flick in tandem.

And just like that the darkness is dispelled in a shower of gold and crimson sparks from the foreign wand clasped in Rey’s thin fingers. Light, steadier and from behind her, a strange, blue-white glow and she turns and she’s not in the store room, but a hallway that stretches interminably into the distance.

"No!" the same pitiful cry for help, younger and older, closer and further than before, from all directions, from nowhere, bouncing off of the familiar unknown stone walls of the unending corridor, swallowed whole by the ancient rocks that encircle her. Rey turns once, twice, she spins, she has to find them, this voice that calls to her from nowhere, from everywhere. Underneath the cries for help grows a sound that sends icy knives down the length of her spine, a death rattle, a gasping breath. It’s air moving beneath a First Order mask, the keening wail of all that is good being torn from a single soul, from a thousand souls, from England, from the wizarding world, from all living things.

Rey spins again and stumbles to a halt. A Door. The Door. She must open that door. Her feet move of their own volition as the breathing and the cries echo louder and ever louder, eardrums protesting the volume and she never reaches the door because the world has lost its anchor. She is adrift. Gravity has no meaning and the hall is turning. She falls and falls and she’s going to hit the wall and she does, but it’s not the wall. Rey is outside, lying on dew-freckled blades of grass, clinging to her skin and clothes, tickling her scalp through her disheveled hair. It’s late afternoon light and the sky is blue and clear and she gasps for air and there’s not enough, never enough, she has never had enough, but she can’t stop--

She’s on her feet, bent in half and struggling for air, but alive, alive, blessedly alive, alive and breathing even if each intake slices through her lungs, her ribs creak and groan in protest. Rey looks up through sweat-sodden hanks of hair that have fallen across her forehead and the world is aflame. The building is known and unknown, it’s Hogwarts, it’s the Ministry, it’s the flat of the best of the fosters, it’s the group home Finn lived in during the unending stretches of slow summer days, it’s Resistance Headquarters and from every last one voices, one voice yells and pleads and whispers and begs and begs and begs. Everything is blistering heat and razor tongues of flame, it burns and it burns and in the grass not five yards away she sees R2-D2, his familiar flour-flecked apron and rainbow knitwear forsaken for somber, close-cut robes in miniature and beside him --

Professor Skywalker, it must be, though she can’t see his face beneath the hood of his cloak. The silvered skin of his magical prosthetic gleams red and orange in the firelight as he reaches trembling fingers to R2-D2. The elf’s head is bowed not in supplication but in grief, in resignation, in the blank-faced horror of the death of hope and Skywalker is there, Skywalker drops to his knees at R2-D2’s moss green feet and every centimeter of his body screams defeat defeat defeat.

When the heat has grown too great to bear, too far past the point of pain and Rey is about to lose herself, lose consciousness, if she’s even conscious in this place that is and isn’t, this place between, of unwaking and undreaming, the rain comes. Fat drops that fall first in a trickle and then it’s as if the sky has opened up and is determined to swallow the earth, to take it whole, to leave no land no trace of man and sweep away the heat and overrun the pain and the darkness in cooling torrents and night falls between one blink and the next. Rey looks up to the sky and she recognizes not a single constellation and when she looks down the burning buildings are gone and instead there is the horrible silent green glow of death, of a killing curse, of _Avada Kedavra_ cutting through the world with the acrid scent of burnt ozone and a wizard clad in the robes of the old rebellion drops.

He drops and he is gone, he’s gone and the rain keeps falling and Rey is helpless as the curses fly, streaks of red and green and silvered black flashing in the low light and one by one the rebels fall to the patchy meadow mud. Kylo Ren, hideous mask in place, stands in the downpour, knuckles white, wand pointed toward the raindrenched earth, shoulders rising and falling with harsh, unnatural breaths that deafen her, that rattle in the shells of her ears and slip down her back, that make the hairs at the nape of her neck rise. Ren is flanked by his Knights, glorified from the rank of file of the Order and swathed in black robes and hooded cloaks, their wands the inky color of oil pooling on pavement on a hot summer night, shiny-slick and reflective in the dim. Rey can’t look at them, can feel the darkness that clings to them and she turns with the sound of the cries which are rising over the deafening thunder of the rain on the soil and she finally sees --

A girl. She is small, so small, bird-boned, straggly-haired, and wan, tear tracks cutting through the dirt smudged on her too-thin cheeks. And then Rey isn’t watching the girl, she’s watching through the girl’s eyes and she’s sobbing, she’s crying from the depths of her soul, great heaving wails she dredges up from places in her heart she never knew she possessed because how could one small heart hold so much, how could any creature bear to care that way and live through the loss.

There’s a fat-fingered hand wrapped around her elbow and a rumbling voice demanding her silence as Rey dredges up strength, finds the air in her too-tiny lungs to scream out, "No, come back!" to the figures flying further and further away through the rain-splotched sky. Rey breaks the clammy grip on her arm and is tumbling, she’s falling and falling and --

Rey’s surrounded by old growth trees, their limbs laden with snow and growing heavier under the onslaught still dropping from the grey sky. She can see her breath swirling in the night air, ephemeral shapes forming and unbecoming as fast as her feet, her feet fleet on the forest floor and she hears it. Hears them. Barked curses and screams and the displacement of air as wands whip frantically and she’s running running running. Rey runs towards the noise, towards the broken bodies, towards someone she can still help, still find and fix and her feet slip on rotting leaves hidden beneath drifted snow and he’s there. Kylo Ren. A monster in a mask, he's leaping from behind a tree with wand extended and breath too loud, it’s too loud, and he draws in and the curse is on his lips, is caught in his throat and she can’t move, she can’t move and then she’s slipping she’s falling back and it’s too late, it’s too late, she can’t, it’s too late --

 

\--

 

It was winter break of their seventh year when Finn found the Mirror of Erised.

"I don’t understand what it does," he confided, voice low and wand raised to illuminate the corridor. He’d had another growth spurt over the summer and he towered above her. She was still unused to his greater reach, his longer strides, and forced down a scowl as she lengthened her strides to keep pace. The torches in this portion of the fourth floor were dark and there was no lingering scent of burning. Rey thought no one had walked this way for a long time. "It doesn’t just reflect you. It -- " Finn’s brows furrowed and his mouth formed a pinched grimace she’d never seen before. "I just want to know if you can see what I see."

Rey was unfamiliar with the classroom. The blackboard at the front of the room was grimy with years of chalk residue. Chairs and desks were piled high against all of the walls, haphazard, illogical stacks. A wire wastepaper basket spilled crumbling scrolls across one cobwebbed corner of the floor. The thick, barely-disturbed layer of dust coating the ground muffled their footsteps as they crossed the cold stone in their slippered feet.

"Here it is." Finn pointed to the far side of the room with his free hand. Tucked back into one corner stood a tall, perfectly polished mirror, it’s surface unblemished and reflecting the moonlight drifting through the lone window. He stepped in front of it and Rey could tell he was biting back a smile. "Come on, look and tell me what you see."

Rey moved quietly, slippers making soft shushing noises through the dust, until she stood shoulder to shoulder -- well, shoulder to mid-bicep -- with Finn. She startled, looked over one shoulder, and back to her reflection.

Instead of the abandoned classroom, she saw herself sitting at a desk in a small, cluttered office. Multi-colored memos fly into the tiny room and unfold themselves before dropping into her inbox. The Rey in the mirror was writing, her quill confidently flying across a length of parchment. She had a satisfied smile on her face, a face with a healthy tan and the full cheeks she usually regains by the end of the school year and months of good eating. Her reflection paused, briefly, to look out her tiny window and bask in the winter sunshine, that small, pleased smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, whaddaya see?" Finn asked.

It never occurred to Rey to lie. "I’m sitting in an office. My own office. I think I’m at the ministry, there are those flying notes like they use to send each other messages. You remember, from when we visited Director Antilles’ office last summer?"

"And you’re alone?" Rey nodded and wasn’t sure why Finn looked so very, very sad.

"Yeah. I've got my own office, it looks like." She suppressed the glow of pride curling beneath her breastbone. "Why? What do you see?"

Finn’s mouth quirked into a quiet, crooked grin. "My family. Or, I guess they’re my family. There’s a man and a woman who look like me and are the right age, and you’re standing there, and Slip and Pamich, teasing each other mercilessly. There are some other people who could be aunts or cousins or something. And -- " Finn’s eyes flicked down and to the left, his shoulders tensing up towards his ears.

"Poe?"

Finn nodded.

"It’s stupid," he added, tone fierce. "It’s -- he doesn’t even remember me. I don’t know why I can’t just let it go."

"Why should you?" Rey asked. She hesitated a moment before taking Finn’s free hand in hers. His expression melted, smile returning and the furrow between his brows disappearing. "Anybody’d be lucky to have you. Even some dumb Quidditch player who’s clearly not worthy of you." Rey squeezed his hand before letting it go. She looked back to the mirror with a frown. "Is this where you’ve been disappearing to on the nights when you’re skipping the NEWT’s revision sessions?" His guilty squirm was answer enough. "I don’t know if it’s a good idea to get too attached to this...this vision mirror. Dream mirror. Whatever it is."

"Why? Seems…" Finn stared into his reflection, longing obvious in his dark eyes. She hadn't seem him look that hungry in years. "Seems harmless enough."

"Dreams seem harmless until you realize they’re something you can never have," Rey said, staring down her mirror self, who’d looked up from her parchment with a wry grin. "It’s better if you don’t know what you’re missing. Then you can never be disappointed."

 

\--

 

It’s not too late.

Rey slips and falls back. She sprawls on the ground and she’s back in the dark corridor on the far side of the kitchen, her own wand in her left hand and the foreign wand that called to her nowhere in sight. She fumbles until her free hand hits the wall and scrambles into a sitting position. Her lungs flutter and falter before obeying her demand to _breathe, dammit_ , and the world comes into sharp, startling focus. Maz, still clad in her wizard-style robes, is standing a few feet away, green eyes enormous behind her Omnioculars.

"What--" Rey leans her head back against the wall, closes her eyes, and takes a long, shuddering breath. She tucks her sweat-streaked hair behind her ears and she just. Breathes. "What was that? I shouldn’t have gone in there."

"Perhaps not," Maz allows, expression serious and strangely soft. "That wand was was Luke’s and his father’s before him, and now it calls to you."

Rey’s on her feet, unsteady, but standing, before she realized she was moving. She places a steadying hand against the wall, blinking perspiration out of her eyes. "I don’t -- no. I don’t want it. I just want to -- I don’t _want_ this. I don’t want to be that. I can’t be that. I’m just Rey."

"Dear child." Maz’s eyes are too kind and too old and too knowing. Too, too much. She reaches her long, sharp-nailed fingers to clasp Rey’s trembling hands in a gentle grip. "I see your eyes. You already know the truth. You’re no mere foundling. You were always going to be more. There’s no going back. But there’s someone who still could teach you. Who also balked at heeding the call."

"Professor Skywalker," Rey says. "Luke."

"The belonging you seek is not behind you, hiding in plain sight like so much wheat amongst the chaff. It is ahead. I am no witchling," Maz grins, too many teeth, bright white in the low light of the hall, "but I know magic. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light. It’s always been there. It will guide you. The wand. Take it."

Rey tears her hand away like she’s been scalded. "I’m never touching that again." She just wants to be normal. She wants to help, but to fade into the woodwork. She wants no part in any prophecy, she never wanted to be the Chosen One, she never even meant to join the Resistance, but the call. Oh how her magic reaches inexorably out to the call. “I don’t want any part of this.” She stalks off, thinking she might return to her little room with its false window and its false security and instead veering off towards the stairs.

Perhaps the true night sky will bring some comfort to a girl with her head in the clouds and her feet so very tenuously on the ground.


End file.
